Winds of change

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October 15, 1993

ISSUE DATE: October 15, 1993

UPDATED: October 15, 1993 00:00 IST

Called the cowboys of the Changthang-the Ladakh flatland bordering Tibet-the Changpas have enjoyed their nomadic lifestyle and colourful customs in splendid isolation for centuries. But now 'civilisation' is creeping up on them. Principal Photographer PRAMOD PUSHKARNA and Senior Correspondent VIJAY JUNG THAPA visited the exotic land to assess the lure of modernity and the changes it is bringing about.

DOLMA Tshering was married to two brothers, Thondup and Thubten, as was the ancient custom among the Changpas. The marriage took place on a gloriously bright-skied day, glittery as mica, on the high plains of Chang thang in east Ladakh. She came from a well-to-do family and brought with her 50 sheep and goats and her own horse. There was festivity in the air as men and women sported their shining silk clothes and turquoise-studded hats which they had bought in Tibet.

The two days after the marriage ceremony were an endless haze of arrack, the local spirit, and fresh goat meat. There were drunken binges down by the Tso Murari lake as the moonlight cut streaks across the shimmering waves. There was horse-racing up on the high plains and dancing with women afterwards. And finally on the fourth day, the guests went back to their woollen tents, leaving the married threesome alone.

It was time to get on with life. And live like the Changpas have for centuries in the land of their ancestors, ringed with mountains, hard-blue skies and clear desert air. This is a flat area called Rupshu, south of Aksai Chin and spilling into Tibet, a lonesome place that other Ladakhis call 'out there'.

The Changpas are a surly nomadic tribe, more Tibetan than Indian, who move around with their herds of goats and sheep. Against the backdrop of a dramatic lands cape, the Changpas look flamboyant in their deep purple robes, long plaits and Chinese balaclavas, whipping their horses as they raise dust in the high plains of Changthang. The name literally means the northern plains, and Changpas, the people of the north.

A Changpa blends well with his herd. Like them, he walks with a short and lively gait. His furred coats are made from their hair, his moccasins from their hide. He drinks their milk and eats their meat. He and his animals move as one body, walking and living together. Something they have been doing for centuries. It's a way of life-an interdependence between man and animal.

The Pashmina herd is the wealth of the Changpa. The rest of Ladakh considers him a wild man of the mountains to be approached only when the Pashmina needs to be bought. It is because of their herds that the Changpas lead a nomadic life. Roaming around this windswept plateau, smoke billowing out in intertwining strands from their brown and black tents, miles from anywhere, has ensured their isolation.

As the Changthang weaves across international boundaries, so do the Changpas. They wander into Tibetan villages spending days there with their herds and buying Chinese crockery, velvet, silk and even flasks. Sometimes, they get a Tibetan stove with a chimney that fits snugly into the tents. In exchange the Changpas give Pashmina, butter and milk. The Changpas take pride in their unique way of life-that they never settle down.

As was the custom, the two brothers and their common bride would have to live alone. Their mother, too old to manage her own tent, following the practice of the old Changpas, would cease to be a nomad. She would live in Karzok village by the Tso Murari lake, a congregation of mud-stone structures on a bare hill that has an old gompa (monastery) at the top.

That was six years ago. Since then, everything has changed. For Thond up and Thubten, and for the Changpas as a tribe. The great beast of civilisation has invaded their land and divided their people. There was, in retrospect, nothing more symbolic than the fearsome beast which suddenly appeared on the rough-hewn road from Leh to Karzok on the day the brothers took their mother to the village. They had never seen anything like it. It wound up the path spewing out black fumes, and then with a triumphant scream, stopped next to the gompa.

The Changpas were stunned. They had never seen a Tata truck before in their land. The bewildered old women of Karzok even offered freshly cut fodder to the great beast. It was then that everything started to change.

The brothers had been fascinated with the truck and were starry-eyed about the stories of the world outside. They went back to Dolma, grazing their herds and moving from place to place as the weather changed. But then, Thubten started disappearing suddenly for weeks together. He would return with a headful of ideas that were driving him insane. He had been up to Numa, 60 km away, where the stone-studded path disappeared into a huge flat road.' 'It was as smooth as your face,'' he would tell Dolma. Sitting by the highway, sipping butter tea, he had watched more than a hundred great beasts thundering by. He had made new friends and learnt that the Chinese goods that the Changpas brought back from Tibet fetched a good price here. And that's what he wanted to do. To change his life.

FOR Thondup Tshering, the old days are slowly disappearing like the morning mist that shrouds the hills and valleys of his beloved land. The threat to the tribe's nomadic, isolated life-style and centuries of tradition becomes more real with each passing day. For Changpas like Thondup, desperately clinging to the shreds of the past, the ancient history of his people has begun to haunt him more than ever. The memories come flooding back, bits of an old story, lost words of his childhood, of idle conversation around smoking fires. How the elders had spoken of the ancestors being fearsome rulers with their warriors smearing the borders with enemy blood. They had then followed an animistic religion called Poi. But the days of glory were short lived. They were defeated in a series of battles and forced to live a nomadic life in exile. The leaders swore that the tribe would settle down again only if they ruled the lands once more. It was around that time that they adopted Buddhism and began a life of peaceful co-existence with their animals. "It was Buddha's will."

Right from childhood he remembered his tribe shunning outsiders. They would come on horses with huge boxes and talk about a Sheikh, who had great powers, and lived in the west, a valley of green meadows. "You have to vote for him," they would tell his tribe, who had never seen ballot-papers. But the outsiders were never trusted. They would kill the game and foul up the streams. They would make a pretence by donating things to the monastery, but would never pray inside. The Changpas always kept them at arm's length. And this also prevented them from exploring the outside world.

Thondup knows in his bones that the old ways are finished. His own life is changing slowly but surely. Some of it is good. There is an open-air school in Karzok, a ration shop has recently been built and a makeshift dispensary is slowly acquiring medicine stocks. The old in Karzok have a better life now, and it is even luring the young Changpas to give up their nomadic ways, settle down at Karzok, and try their hand at agriculture.

TRADITION, centuries old, is being eroded- losing out to technology. Two of the richest homes in Karzok sport LPG cylinders brought from Numa, spreading wonder among the locals. The local homemade bread is shunned for the more attractively packed factory bread. The youth too ache for change-preferring chic shorter hairstyles to their long greasy plaits and trendy outfits to their purple robes.

And suddenly there is a divide between the 'refined and the raw'. The Changpas who have seen the outside world, walk with a sophisticated air, cracking jokes at the 'crude' nomad up in the hills. The isolation that they enjoyed now hurts as they sense themselves to be mired in poverty and despair. With the result that outsiders are now welcomed, as if to make up for lost time.

Thondup has heard from the old school-master that more outsiders are expected. "This area is going to be opened. People would come and see. To admire the way you live." It seems ironical to Thondup. Now as the tribe is slowly being brought under the plastic wrap of 'civilisation', would outsiders come to observe them? "We are becoming more like them," he says laughing. There is a rustle in a bush next to him. A Brahmani duckling is cowering inside. Thondup plucks it out, holding it in the sun to admire it.

There are a hundred things on his mind. There seems to be a new world dawning over the mountains. Should he accept this? What if their lands are ruined and their herds killed? What if the Changpas no longer survive? Thondup knows that his dilemma will continue. Perhaps even if he is the last of his tribe.

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